


better give that heart a listen

by tardigradeschool



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Crew as Family, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Future Blupjeans, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Pining, just a lot of bi boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 21:31:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14923196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tardigradeschool/pseuds/tardigradeschool
Summary: Barry needs a fake husband if he wants to stay undercover. Magnus is more than willing to help him out. Davenport needs a vacation.





	better give that heart a listen

**Author's Note:**

> title from fatboy slim's demons
> 
> i posted this a couple months ago on tumblr so if it looks familiar that's why! also, full disclosure: i'm way too much of a slut for blupjeans to write a fic where barry isn't in love with lup, but there's no actual blupjeans content in this fic

“Look,” Barry says. “I panicked. This is not, strictly speaking, my fault.”

Taako bobs his head in agreement. “Yeah, Barry, I guess we should have known better than to send you on an undercover mission. We were such fools.”

“Yeah,” Barry says, then, half-heartedly: “Hey.”

“Shut up,” Lup tells her brother. She turns to Barry. “This is fixable, my dude. We have a fresh supply of potentially eligible fake spouses for you. One question, though--” A grin grows on her face. “How did you fuck up that bad?”

Barry sighs, long-suffering. “Like I said, I panicked. The duchess was coming on to me, like, pretty hard, and it wasn’t like I could just, you know, turn her down. So I just--”

“--said you were married,” Davenport finishes. He looks, if anything, even more long-suffering than Barry feels. “Okay. Like Lup said, this is fixable. Just tell me you didn’t give details, because I seriously doubt there’s anyone on this ship who can sit still long enough for me to put a disguise spell on them.”

“Hey,” Magnus says, indignant. “I sat still for a whole hour yesterday while Taako painted my nails.”

“And smudged them immediately afterward,” Taako interjects.

Barry pauses. “I did say husband.” He had been going to say wife, but then he thought of Lup and knew in that instant that he couldn’t talk about a fake wife who was anyone but her. That would have made it easier to pretend, but it would have felt worse.

In his periphery, he sees Taako nudge Lup and whisper something to her. She elbows him in the stomach, hard. 

Davenport ignores them. “Okay,” he says. “That’s Lup and Lucretia out of the mix.”

“Oh no,” Lucretia says, sounding remarkably uninterested. “I  _ so _ wanted to make conversation with the royal family from hell. Whatever will I do.”

“Alright,” Davenport says, ignoring her too. “That’s four options. Merle can’t go undercover, so it won’t be him--”

Merle looks vaguely offended. “What,” he says. “I’m not good enough to dine with royalty?” He pretends to straighten an imaginary tie. “Would you like me to pass the caviar, Mrs. Vicountess of So-and-so-on-the-sea?” He makes a noise that seems to be an imitation of smoking a fancy pipe. “Hmm, hmm?”

“Thank you for proving my point,” Davenport says. “I can’t leave the ship because I’m still working on repairs from that mountain we collided with. Taako--?”

“No can do, hombre,” Taako says. “Ya boy’s got that sweet, sweet research lab to himself for the first time in years and you can bet I’m working on something revo- _ lu _ -tionary.”

“Right,” Davenport says. “But I better not find sentient ooze in the carpet again, okay?” Taako shifts sullenly. “So that leaves--”

“Me!” Magnus says, as though he’s only just completed the math in his head. He beams at Barry. “I’m gonna be the best husband ever, dude!”

“--or we can just cancel the recon altogether,” Davenport finishes, dropping into his seat. Barry wonders when the captain last slept through the night. 

“No way,” Magnus says, making his way over to Barry’s side. “We can do it. Right, Barry?”

“Right,” Barry says, with more confidence than he feels. He puts a hand awkwardly on Magnus’s hand; Magnus bypasses this level of contact completely and puts his other arm around Barry’s shoulders. It’s heavy. Magnus smells a little sweaty, but not in a bad way. Barry tries to smile as sincerely as he can. “See, cap’n?” he says. “Like Magnus said. We’re going to be the best husbands ever.”

 

So here’s the thing: Barry isn’t blind. 

It’s not his fault he’s on a ship where the average level of attractiveness is  _ well _ above average, even with Barry balancing out the lower end. Granted, the twins skew the curve a little, but the other crew-members -- even Merle, in a weird way -- could be called good-looking too.

It certainly doesn’t help -- or hurt, depending on one’s viewpoint -- that the people surrounding Barry are also compassionate and interesting, or that he has two decades worth of knowledge to back that judgement up. 

Barry could, theoretically, avert his eyes every time Lup laughed or Magnus worked out shirtless or Taako stuck his tongue out as he concentrated, etc. He tries to, sometimes. But he’d have a hard time avoiding the fact that everyone on the ship is, in their own way, a deeply good person. 

Sue him. He’s horny for teamwork. And he never was very good at finding that line between admiration and attraction.

 

Magnus fidgets in his suit. It’s a little small on him, despite being the biggest size the store offered, and Barry will be the first to admit that the way his shoulders and chest strain at the fabric is distracting.

“It’ll be fine,” Barry says. “All we need is confirmation that the duke or his brother is hiding the Light somewhere, and then we can, uh, skedaddle.”

“Right,” Magnus says. “How do we do that again?”

Barry straightens his tie. “I have no idea.”

The door opens and the duchess opens the door. “Hello,” she cooes. Barry can feel Magnus tense up beside him. “So this is the famous husband. Bert was so tight-lipped about you last time, but now I see it’s because we simply wouldn’t have believed him.” She pivots to Barry and fans herself. “He’s magnificent.”

“Er, thank you,” Barry says. All of a sudden, he becomes intensely aware of the age difference between him and Magnus. Even the kindest of estimates would put Barry over a decade older than Magnus and a more realistic guess would make out to be Barry twice Magnus’s age. Add to that the fact that Magnus is so much better looking than him that cashiers often put dividers down between their food and Barry feels more than a little uneasy about the way they look together. He had forgotten, somehow, that he looks so much older than his friends; relative age on the Starblaster has gotten fuzzier and fuzzier as the decades have passed.   
“Yes, thank you,” Magnus says, managing to sound much less uncomfortable than Barry. He takes Barry’s arm.

The duchess’s smile gets impossibly wider. “Do come in,” she says, stepping back. Her wide, shimmering skirt whooshes against the marble floor.

The noise coming from the foyer is intimidating. “Is this a party?” Barry asks, at once exponentially more nervous. Magnus squeezes his wrist reassuringly.

“Well, of course!” the duchess says. “It’s the night before the summer festival! What else is one going to do? Why, what on earth did you think you were coming here for? You must have turned down so many offers to come.”

“Hundreds,” Magnus says solemnly. 

“How kind of you to choose to spend the evening in our company, then.” The duchess leads them through a set of high double doors, into the source of the noise. There are dozens of people in the lavish room, some sitting, some circulating around, all dressed as opulently as the duchess. Barry is very grateful he let the twins dress him rather than doing it himself.

“Geez,” Magnus mutters. “So is this, like, a divide and conquer situation, or--?”

“No,” Barry says, scanning the room. “They’re all in couples. Look.” Every person in the room, ranging in age from early twenties to mid seventies, is on someone’s arm. There seem to be a couple sets of three, but they are the only exception.

“Huh,” Magnus says. Barry feels the same. There’s no reason to be anxious, but--

“We should have done research on this festival,” Barry murmurs. “We don’t know what we’re getting ourselves into. I feel like I’m taking a test and I haven’t studied at all.”

Magnus looks at him, warm-eyed. “You’ve never done that in your life.”

“Maybe not,” Barry says. “But I’m not crazy about starting now.”

 

The conversations are not too bad, overall. They stumble slightly on a few of the innocent relationship questions they really should have discussed beforehand; when asked how they met, Barry says, “At work,” at the same time Magnus says, “University.” Both are technically true.

“I was an intern in a research project Bar -- uh, Bert was working on,” Magnus says quickly. “I didn’t understand any of it, but I stayed on because I didn’t want to stop seeing him.” The other couple  _ aww _ s. Magnus bumps Barry gently with his shoulder. “Good ol’ Bert made sure to wait until I wasn’t working for him anymore before he even flirted with me,” Magnus says. “Even though I wasn’t even assigned to his part of the research.”

The couple’s eyes shift to Barry as Magnus smiles at him. Even though he knows logically that the naked affection in Magnus’s face is an act, Barry can feel heat rising to his cheeks. 

“Yes, well,” he says, adjusting his glasses to distract from the red in his face. “Responsibility is important, you know, even in a loosely hierarchical setting, and I knew if I was ever lucky enough to get with the cute undergrad doing all the filing, it had to be on the right terms. And in a situation where I wouldn’t be asked to fire him for filing all the papers wrong.”

The couple laughs. The taller woman passes her wife her wine glass so she can get another amuse bouche from the table in the back.

“Hey,” Magnus says. “I was distracted by a cute grad student, can you blame me?”

“You two are just too much,” the shorter woman says. She takes a covert sip of her wife’s white wine and slips Barry and Magnus a wink. “Don’t get me wrong, I want my wits about me for the festival, but the duke’s wine collection is too good to pass up.”

Barry and Magnus exchange a look. “We only moved here recently,” Barry says carefully. “Maybe you could fill us in on the way the festival is celebrated here?”

“This region’s pretty much the same as everywhere else,” the woman says. “People around here tend to be a little more progressive about birth control and stuff like that, but there are still a couple thousand April babies every year, so it doesn’t really matter.”

It’s July right now -- nine months before April. 

The woman continues. “There are region-specific folk songs, of course, but I’m sure you guys will catch on to those fast. I mean, they’re mostly chorus.” She laughs. 

Barry manages a smile. “Thanks.” As the woman turns back to her wife, he leans up to speak to Magnus. “Does this seem a little sketchy?”

Magnus shrugs. One of the seams on his shoulder splits slightly. “This festival definitely seems like a big deal. I think we just go with it.”

“Dinner!” the duchess calls. The crowd shuffles into the next room, finding their places at a long table. Barry keeps a tight grip on Magnus’s arm and tries not to notice the muscle under his suit. 

They manage to keep more or less to themselves during dinner, making innocuous conversation with the couples around them. The duchess has seated them only a few places down from her end of the table, and she keeps raising her voice to ask Magnus his opinion on things. 

Barry is nervous enough that he doesn’t eat much, although the food is delicious. When they wheel out a huge, pink cake, Barry’s mouth actually waters. The conversation dies down as the slices of cake are passed out. Barry reluctantly waits when he’s given his piece, and as soon as the duchess picks up her fork at the very end of the table, he digs in.

Barry’s tooth nearly cracks as he bites down on something hard in the fluffy cake. He slowly fishes the offending object out of his mouth; it’s an unpitted cherry. On his right, Magnus grunts and spits out a cherry of his own. When Barry looks up, he realizes the whole table is watching.

“A waste,” the duchess sighs, “What are the odds it would be a couple? I could have sworn I told the maitre d’ to slip me a cherry -- and I wouldn’t have been picky about it being either of you.” A titter sweeps the table.

“That’s very fucking ominous,” Magnus whispers.

“Go on, then,” she says. “The gods have blessed this union and whatnot.” She waves a hand.

Barry braces himself to be dragged away by a guard. Magnus looks similarly suspicious. “Uh,” he says.

“Don’t be shy!” someone calls. 

“Yes, if none of us can kiss him, do it for us, Bert,” the duchess says, leaning her chin on her hand. 

Barry’s eyes meet Magnus’s. He has no idea what face he’s making. Magnus’s eyebrows go up -- what Barry realizes a second late is a nonverbal _ do you mind if I?  _ and nods subtly.

Magnus’s hand comes up to Barry’s neck first. His fingers are calloused and warm and trail up the nape of Barry’s neck to his hair as he pulls him gently in. Not that Barry has thought about it at length, but Magnus kisses how he would expect him to kiss: a little clumsy (though that could be the fact that there are over fifty people watching) but earnest.

People clap as they break apart. Barry’s hand drops from Magnus’s chest -- where he hadn’t even realized it was resting. Magnus makes a face at him and reaches over to ruffle Barry’s hair back into place. Barry can feel his heart beating in his fingertips.

“Very good!” the duchess says. “And that concludes our night. I expect you’re all terribly eager to be off, so your room keys should be attached to the underneath of your chairs.” There is some laughter as people dangle their keys cheerfully in her direction and split off.

“Are we staying here?” Barry asks. His voice is inexplicably hoarse. “She didn’t say anything about staying the night?”

“I am starting to get the idea,” Magnus says under his breath, “that this is some kind of sex festival.”

Barry chokes on a laugh. “You don’t say.”

“We should stay,” Magnus says decisively. “It’ll look suspicious if we don’t.” He glances at Barry. “Don’t you think? We haven’t found out any real information yet.”

“True,” Barry says. He snags the key under his chair. “But let’s at least get out of this room?” He doesn’t say ‘away from the duchess’, but he’s pretty sure Magnus catches his drift.

They don’t quite hurry down the hallway after the other couples, but they would definitely stand out if all the other people weren’t preoccupied by the person they’re with. A few of the couples are actually going faster than Barry and Magnus, with an eagerness Barry would prefer not to think about.

When they step into their room, they’re met with a cool summer breeze. The windows are open to a broad courtyard, moonlight falling on the room’s single bed. Barry’s sure it would be terribly romantic if he wasn’t paralysed with something he doesn’t quite understand.

Magnus seems to feel no such awkwardness, thumbing open the buttons on his suit and exhaling deeply. “You have no idea how hard it was to not pop those buttons off during dinner. If I breathed deeply at all they would have shot across the room like tiny bullets.”

“You’re right,” Barry says. “I have no idea.” He sits down and takes off his shoes. When he looks up moments later, Magnus is shirtless. 

Barry finds himself momentarily unable to look away. He’s seen Magnus partially or even fully naked probably hundreds of times at this point; there are few people as unselfconscious. As if to demonstrate this point, Magnus glances up and smiles at him as he takes off his belt.

“Weird fuckin’ energy in there,” he says. Out of some impossible luck, he keeps his pants on. 

“I’ll say,” Barry agrees, pulling off his own dress jacket. Another breeze ripples through the room, and with only the protection of his thin dress shirt, Barry shivers. When he goes to smiles ruefully at Magnus, he finds that he’s still watching him.

“Sorry about just laying one on you in there,” Magnus says. He goes into the bathroom, leaving the door ajar. “Cool! They’ve got toothbrushes for us and everything.”

“It’s fine,” Barry says. “It would have been weird if we didn’t. It was smart of you to just go for it.”

Magnus snorts. “It’s not like it was a chore,” he says. Barry can hear the faucet go on. “You’re a good kisser, you know?”

“Uh,” Barry says. “Thanks? I’m a little surprised I haven’t forgotten how, it’s been so long.”

“Don’t be modest,” Magnus says.

“I’m really not,” Barry says. “It’s been about a decade, probably.”

“No!” Magnus says. He sounds like his mouth is full of toothpaste. “That’s a crime! Barry Bluejeans has been keeping his lips unlawfully locked away for too many years.”

“More like his lips have retreated to a hermitage in the forest,” Barry says. “Believe me, intention was not a factor in my kiss-less-ness.”

“Oh, bullshit,” Magnus says. His tone turns sly. Even without seeing him, Barry can hear the wink in his voice. “Lup would kiss you any day, you know.”

Barry groans. “Did Taako say something to you?”

“Didn’t have to, dude. I may be stupid but I’m not dumb, you know?”

“You’re neither of those things,” Barry says. “Am I really that obvious?”

“Not to her,” Magnus says. “Though that’s probably worse.” He emerges from the bathroom, hair damp and water trickling down his chest. He leans on the doorframe. “You should say something to her.”

“Yeah, right,” Barry says. 

“C’mon,” Magnus says. He scrapes some wet hair off of his forehead. Barry wonders if he just put his head under the faucet -- he didn’t hear the shower at all. 

“Magnus,” Barry says helplessly.

“Look, I’m sure Lup likes you too, and if she doesn’t -- I mean, she does, but in the hypothetical where she doesn’t -- she doesn’t know what she’s missing. I’d kiss you again anytime, ten out of ten.”

“Magnus,” Barry repeats. He stands up and steps past Magnus into the bathroom. “Look, it’s not -- it’s not going to happen, and I’ve--” He tries to look up at Magnus, but the step down into the bathroom puts him eye level with Magnus’s pecs. “Anyway. You can’t just--” 

“I’m not meddling,” Magnus says defensively, stepping down into the bathroom. “I’m supporting you. If Lup were here, I’d be saying the same thing to her. How hard can it be?”

Barry does look at him then. The bathroom’s frank light washes over Magnus, but instead of washing him out, it catches on his nose and cheekbones, sharpening them in a way that shouldn’t be flattering but is. Water droplets continue to roll lazily from his hair down his neck and chest. Barry’s eyes follow one against his will, and the drop gets all the way from Magnus’s ear to his clavicle before Barry can drag his gaze back up again. 

“Oh,” Magnus says. His tone has changed. 

Barry flushes. He can’t tell if he’s more embarrassed or exhausted; he wants to sink into the collar of this awful shirt and never emerge. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“Don’t be,” Magnus says. He steps a little closer -- closer than Barry expected him to -- and tilts Barry’s chin up. There’s something in Magnus’s eyes that isn’t unkind enough to be smug. He’s grinning so hard that their teeth clack together when he leans down and kisses Barry. 

They stumble a little on the step back -- what an idiotic place to put a step -- and almost miss the bed. Magnus gets his hands all the way up under Barry’s starched shirt, no doubt rumpling it completely. Barry doesn’t have it in him to care; Magnus’s shoulders are distractingly broad and Barry gets a satisfying handful of love handle. 

“Hang on,” Barry says, a little breathless. “I mean, I do -- I do have feelings for Lup, and I’m not trying to--”

“That’s cool,” Magnus says. “You guys’ll get your act together eventually, and I’m cool with that.” He genuinely sounds cool with it. “And maybe once you do you’ll remember your old pal Magnus and maybe this is early to ask since you aren’t actually dating her yet but do you think you two might be interested in including--” There’s laughter in his voice. Barry cuts him off with another kiss; Magnus is actually giggling now. “--or I could just watch--”

“I’ll never understand you,” Barry says, shaking his head. 

Magnus wiggles his eyebrows and goes to undo the buttons on Barry’s shirt. “I have hidden depths,” he says grandly. He’s got about five buttons left when Barry hears something outside the window. He freezes, and so does Magnus.

Distantly, he the duchess say, “But darling, it should be in a museum, not stored away in some crusty old dungeon.”

Someone -- it must be the duke -- responds. “There’s a way to turn a profit, I’m sure, but a museum is not the way. And remember, when I have my own money, we can--” There’s a smooching sound. Magnus makes a face. “You can give up your sham marriage and run away with me. And if my brother just happens to die, then the lands and title will fall to me.”

“So it’s in the basement,” Barry whispers. “Who’d’ve thought?” He starts to climb off the bed, but Magnus catches him by the collar. “What?”

“Well,” Magnus says. “It didn’t sound like they planned on moving it before, you know, tomorrow.”

Barry sits back down. “I guess it would be easier to slip away in a crowd of people,” he says. “Sneaking around at night implies… sneakiness.”

“It does,” Magnus agrees. “So we should stay here?”

“That does seem to be the sensible thing to do,” Barry says. 

“Plus,” Magnus says, finally getting to Barry’s last few buttons, “it is a festival. And I have a chipped molar that says this union was blessed by the gods and shit.”

“Who are we to defy them?” Barry agrees. Magnus tugs his shirt off his shoulders, and despite the breeze, Barry isn’t cold at all. It might have something to do with the fact that one of Magnus’s hands is resting on his upper thigh.

 

Davenport surveys them with suspicion. “It was that easy?” he asks. “They just let you take it?”

“They didn’t have anything to use it for,” Barry says. “And the duchess was pretty amenable when we mentioned that we wouldn’t tell her husband about her affair.”

Davenport looks at them. He had been worried when they didn’t come back in the evening, but they’re both unhurt. He’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but. “They just let you take it?” he repeats.

“Yup,” Barry says. “She had kind of a soft spot for us, even with the blackmail.”

“Why?” Davenport says. (He’s very much one to look a gift horse in the mouth.)

“Because we’re cute as all get out,” Magnus volunteers. “And because we ate some cake with cherries and now the gods here like us.”

“Great,” Davenport says wearily. Despite his exhaustion, he is actually pretty ecstatic about this plane being saved, and so he makes one of his kindest executive decisions ever: he does not comment on Magnus’s hand resting in the back pocket of Barry’s jeans.


End file.
